LYCOS
Guardian Shadow World Book Three
Kris Michaels
Contents
Prologue
1. Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Also by Kris Michaels
Sneak Peek of SEAL Forever
About the Author
Prologue
Two years ago:
Guardian Shadow, Lycos, sat in the corner booth of his favorite D.C. bar. He enjoyed the atmosphere. The crowd, as usual, was diverse. Men with men, men with women, women with women, the dancers didn't give a fuck, and neither did he. Right now, the only thing he cared about was making her way through the grinding bodies on the small dance floor. Her tight ocean blue dress clung to every enticing curve of her holy-fuck-stop-all-traffic, accident-causing, body. Her thick black hair would have fallen to her shoulders if she hadn't twisted it up and skewered it with long ornamental pins. Ornamental his ass.
Lycos leaned back in his seat and let her see his intimate regard. He had a reputation, one he didn't discourage, but one he hadn't earned either. They'd been exclusive for years, except when the job required them to perform, and, as far as they knew, nobody else was aware of their sporadic domestic bliss. Their relationship started as one of convenience and had become one of stability for both of them. Were they in love? No. They'd had that talk often. He wasn't sure either one of them was capable of that particular emotion. What they had… worked. When it no longer did, they'd walk away. He'd be sad to see the end of it, but the only constant in life was change.
He stood as she approached and, even in her four-inch heels, she barely reached his chin. She was his little China doll, although she wasn't fragile. In fact, Moriah was the deadliest woman on the face of the earth. He claimed her mouth as her arms circled his neck. If any of the bastards that were eye fucking her when she walked past them wanted her, they'd have to come through him first. Not that she needed him to protect her, but she allowed it, and that was some heady as fuck shit. She untangled herself from him with one last rub of her hips against his erection.
“Tease.” He hissed as she slid into the booth.
“I don't think it’s a tease if I'm a sure thing.” She picked up his tumbler of Grey Goose and took a drink. She set the glass down and turned to him, leaning into his side, laying her head on his chest. “What's wrong?”
“Why do you think something's wrong?”
“Grey Goose. Your go to when you're stressed.”
“They have you on video.”
Moriah shrugged as if his concerns were nothing. He rolled his eyes at her cavalier attitude. She glanced up and caught him in the act. She huffed, moved away from him and flopped onto the backrest of the booth. “Look, they saw nothing. I watched. I saw what Asp set up, and I examined it when he was inside the house waiting for that bastard. I stole the clothes I wore from a stall in Cartagena, and I put stacks in the heels of my boots. Too tall, no face. Dead man tell no tales, right?”
“Desert Eagle?”
“What? I like that gun. Not like they can trace it or the ammo to me or connect me to Colombia. I was in Egypt on assignment, remember?”
“You shouldn't have killed him. I wanted you there to back up Asp, not to take the Columbian fucker out. You should have left when Asp did.” Lycos was livid when he'd learned she'd popped a cap through that bastard’s brain. This wasn't the first time she'd taken justice into her own hands. He sometimes wondered if the people doing her evaluations saw anything other than her beautiful face. The woman had deep, dark scars. He'd been with her for years, and he knew only the smallest details about her past.
“Don't tell me what to do, lover. I don't like it.”
“I don't want to see you taken down. Stop with the vigilante justice, Miho, or sooner or later, it will come back and trap you.”
Moriah blinked at the use of her given name. She took his Grey Goose and downed it in one swallow. “Stop worrying about me, Ryan. I'm not yours. I never will be. Perhaps it is time we say goodbye.” She slid around the table and got out. Lycos stayed seated. She pulled down her skintight skirt and turned to face him. “I will always be there for you, my dear, sweet, friend. Stay safe. Whatever it takes.”
“As long as it takes, my beautiful China doll.”
“Korean.”
“I know,” he said to her back as he watched the swing of eyes, both male and female, follow her out the door.
He motioned to the waitress and ordered another Grey Goose. He knew he’d been pushing what she tolerated when he criticized her actions, but he’d never expected her to break off their arrangement. He watched the throng on the dance floor pulse and grind against each other while he tried to decide what he felt. He took his drink from the waitress and dropped a fifty on her tray. She smiled enticingly, but he ignored her. He took a long pull on his GG. Sad. He was sad the time with her was over. Wasn't that a shame. He should probably feel more, but… that wasn't him. Or her.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, who the hell was he trying to fool? That was him, and he’d hoped like hell it would have been him with Moriah. That wicked deadly assassin was one of the only constants in his life, and now that shred of normalcy had just sauntered out the door, taking his dreams of a wife, two point five children, and a fucking golden retriever—although in his case it was a wolf hybrid—with her. Sad didn’t begin to describe what he felt.
He shot the rest of his GG down and lifted his glass toward the over-attentive waitress. She acknowledged his request.
He’d come here tonight to talk some sense into his Moriah, not sever the only romantic relationship he had. The waitress did a drive by with his GG. He caught her hand, shot the Goose, and gave her the glass back. He also dropped three fifties on her tray. “Keep them coming.”
“Anything for you, sugar.” She grabbed the bills and winked at him.
His eyes drifted over the dance floor. He’d heard the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Was he insane? A sneer spread across his face. No. At least not according to Guardian’s shrinks, and he fucking saw them often enough.
The waitress dropped off two doubles of GG. “Don’t tell management you’re alone. If they ask, your date is somewhere out there. I’m not supposed to serve you more than one drink at a time, but you look as if you might need two.”
Lycos lifted the glass in a silent salute to his bar goddess and took a sip of the magical elixir, the liquid of champions, or in this particular instance, runner-up. Second place is first loser, asshole. Tonight, after he’d persuaded Moriah to give up the vigilante bullshit that would plant her on the wrong side of their employer, he was going to invite her to see the safe house he’d built—for them. He’d even made changes to his original design anticipating Moriah would someday live there with him. He’d held the self-delusional belief Moriah would think him worth her effort. Lycos’ gaze followed the path she’d used to destroy that dream. He snorted in self-derision. He should have k
nown better. He’d been on his own for the majority of his life. Alone was familiar. Alone was safe. Alone didn’t get his dreams stomped to shit.
Chapter 1
PRESENT DAY:
Stratus, the organization headed by three women known only as the Fates, had suffered a debilitating blow, and the repercussions rippled throughout the global organization. The Fate known only as “One” stared at the image of a woman on the computer screen in front of her filled with a novel emotion—a sense of impotence. Unknown entities held Two, and the enforcement arm of Stratus was being excruciatingly slow in finding where she'd been taken.
“What are we going to do?” Through the microphone of her computer, Three's voice echoed her own thoughts.
“What we've already done. The move to our fall back locations is complete. Two does not know our safeholds.” The fall back positions were Three's idea when they'd first taken over the Triune. Each woman had selected a location with no ties to anything related to the Fates or the businesses they controlled. No one was told of the locations in order to keep them safe in case someone should infiltrate their ranks, or as in the case of Two, be captured and presumably tortured for information.
“That wasn't my concern. Protocol has been followed. To a point.” Three cleared her throat and leaned in toward her monitor. “It is time to erase.”
One's shoulders slumped. Erasure was inevitable. The action was as necessary as air to breathe and water to drink. The effects of an erase would be seen in the slow wave of death that would ripple across the face of the earth and eliminate any and all personnel connected to missions active when Two was taken. The insulated core of Stratus would remain. The left hand did not know what the right did. In fact, on the same hand, the index finger was unaware the ring finger existed. A vacuum kept their core personnel from being able to understand the implications of their work or identify the complex organization behind it.
“I concur. We start with Two. Do we know where she is being held?”
Three sighed. “Several places we've been monitoring have had recent transports.”
“Take them all out.” The loss of their sister was hard, but as Fates, capture meant death. Their only hope was that Two could resist any drugs or torture until they could terminate her.
“It has already been planned. The order need only be given.”
“Then give it. The extent of erasure?”
“I have a document.” The sound of Three tapping her keyboard preceded the file popping up on One's screen.
One double-clicked on the icon. The list wasn't as extensive as she'd assumed. Five works in progress, hundreds of people, and millions of dollars, lost. A waste of resources and some good operatives. Twenty-two sisters would perish. A shame. The collateral wipe eliminated over six hundred others. Six hundred people connected to so few missions. It was amazing how the familial ties and casual acquaintances of the people they manipulated undulated through the population. What was that old saying... something about six degrees of separation? She looked at the list and scrolled down the columns. The names, addresses, occupations, and ages of the people streamed across her monitor. No, not six degrees... six hundred... men, women, children.
She should feel something for the loss of life other than the irritation of shifting the organization's focus and moving Stratus' teams into erasure mode. One flicked her eyes back to the small square where Three waited.
“I concur. Erasure is needed and warranted on all lists you've sent me.”
“I will set the wheels into motion. Now, in regard to replacing Two.” Three tapped her keyboard again, and another document appeared on One's screen. “These are the candidates I have interest in. Do you have your list?”
One double-clicked her mouse and sent her list to Three. “We can discuss the candidates tomorrow after we have reviewed each other's nominations.”
How easy it was to move forward. She should feel something for the loss of Two. Her mind flitted across the feelings that were registering. No regret. Only irritation and anger at the loss of footing Two's capture had caused them. One shrugged her shoulders. It was just as well. Emotions only clouded the mind's objectivity.
“On to the next matter at hand. We have a potential opportunity in Venezuela.”
One minimized the list of six hundred names no longer germane to the conversation. “Two was not involved?”
Three shook her head. “No. This came to light yesterday. She was taken the day before.”
“Ah, well then, let us proceed.” One leaned forward. They would need to replace the monetary stream they'd lost with Two's capture. A nation in turmoil was always prime for exploitation.
Chapter 2
Lycos crouched and waited in silence at the base of the dock connected to the bulkhead of the massive seaside estate. The cement around him faded into the billowing fog that hugged the ground. A deep rolling cloud covered the lush grass that blanketed the vast, carefully maintained lawns. Heavy haze smudged the line between the water and land. The surf lapped at the cement barrier, and it registered in his thoughts, but the sound was just another input to be analyzed and dismissed. His target's approaching footfalls alerted his senses long before the man's mist-obscured form came into view. The soft, repetitious tread of a seasoned runner grew louder.
He reached out and grasped the piece of grey cord stretched across the running path. Vincent Clément, the man jogging down the trail, was a bastard and a monster, and probably the most feared and well-connected gangster on the planet. The Sardinian had tenaciously climbed to the top on the bloody pile of his competitor's bodies. When his father, the leader of the oldest mafia crime family, legitimized him, Clément was able to add his old man's reach and influence to his. The backing of his father catapulted the man into an elite category. Victor used that fear and power to order and pay for the assassinations of four very powerful heads of state, men who'd opposed Clément’s vision for Italy. The first assassination dropped the leader of Italy's financial institutions. The second contract, against the leader of the Italian General Confederation of Labor, had been botched. The assassin had been caught and forced to talk.
Guardian had briefed Lycos with every scrap of information the Council had provided. That was fourteen hours ago. So far, the world knew nothing of either event. Clément didn't know his contractor had been captured. He still thought himself invincible, and that vanity led to his downfall.
The soft footfalls grew louder. Lycos closed his eyes and drew a deep breath before he turned his head and focused on the footpath. Every nerve in his body sang with anticipation. The mandate was to make this assassination look like an accident.
His forte.
He lowered as the footfalls hit the crest of the small knoll thirty paces from his position. His body shifted under the dock when he ducked to see through the boardwalk that ran adjacent to the running path. Steady fingers gripped the cord and waited... Five, four, three, two, one and pull! He tightened the material, sending the man in a sprawled-out flail onto the running path.
Launching from his position, he leaped to the boardwalk and dropped onto Victor before the man had an opportunity to recover. He grabbed one of the large rocks he'd pre-positioned by the running path. With practiced ease, Lycos dropped the stone beside Victor's head, grabbed the man by the hair and slammed his temple into the rock. The body beneath him went limp. A quick check of the gangster’s pulse confirmed the perfectly placed strike had killed the bastard. He pulled the metal rod to which he'd attached the woven cotton line from the ground. To camouflage his presence, he replaced the plug of dirt and grass over the hole the rod made in the lawn.
The cotton tripwire left no scratches or visible bruising on Victor's legs. Scrapes on the man's hands and knees lent credence to the accident Lycos orchestrated. The target fell while running and hit his head. Another unfortunate accident. Methodically, he erased all evidence of his presence. He retrieved his SCUBA gear, donned the mask and tank, and walked out into the Mediterra
nean. A skiff anchored in a cove two miles up the coast would take him to a small fishing port, and from there he’d make his way home. Before the water consumed him, he glanced back toward the dock. The bastard's crimes against humanity were not expunged by his death, but Lycos’ actions stopped further pain.
Number twenty-seven. He knew each target by name. He’d kept score.
The water enveloped his body. A baptism. He'd resurface alone as another person in another life, until Guardian called again.
They always called.
Evil could only be defeated by a greater evil. None were as vile as he.
Bethanie Clark tightened her death grip on the hybrid SUV's steering wheel. It was so damn dark and she, well, exhaustion saturated her bones. Her trip had started at three-thirty yesterday morning. Leaving New York City under the cloak of darkness, she'd driven straight through the day, and now, almost twenty hours later, the darkness of the Smoky Mountains surrounded her. She was back in darkness in more ways than one.
She'd left civilization just past the little town of Balsam, North Carolina—population forty-nine. The previously blacktop surface had become hard pressed gravel that climbed in narrow, switchback turns that made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Worse, those hairpin turns had no guardrails to prevent her small vehicle from plummeting to the bottom of the deep ravines. She flicked the switch on the column of the steering wheel illuminating the high beams of the headlights. The powerful fissures of brightness enhanced the way the granite outcroppings loomed next to the car. The dark shadows obscured the surface of the road as she drove by, and she questioned whether or not the bright lights were a good idea, but without them, she saw hardly anything. So, high beams it was. Her grip tightened again when she glanced out the passenger side window. Inches separated the car from a wall of jagged granite. A glance out her driver's side window revealed a sheer drop-off one lane away that fell into complete blackness. Bethanie flexed her fingers slightly before she resumed her metal-bending grip on the steering wheel. She made sure she was as far to the right as she could safely move before she slowly pulled around the massive outcropping of rock and trees that loomed ahead. A small sigh of relief pushed out of her lungs. The road was visible in her headlights, and it was straight, well… straight-ish.
Lycos (Guardian Security Shadow World Book 3) Page 1
